FIGHTING FRAT FIRES

A replica of a dormitory room, complete with a chair, dresser and emptied beer cans, was burned in West Virginia University’s Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity house parking lot on Thursday.

The room burn, conducted in front of approximately 40 students, was the final event of the Fraternity Fire Academy that showed how quickly a fire spreads.

"This will be the only time you will be allowed to burn a couch on campus," said Bob Campione, facilities manager for Greek housing at WVU.

It only took approximately two minutes after the fire was ignited for the entire room to engulf in smoke and flames and 10 seconds to activate the fire alarm. A sprinkler, installed in the room to show effectiveness, failed to fully activate. The Morgantown Fire Department was then forced to douse the flames.

"It was interesting that there were still flames behind the dresser even after the room had already been doused," said Carmen Bowes, a sophomore pre-psychology major. "I feel if this happened in my house, I would now know to get out immediately."

WVU’s Environmental Health and Safety Senior Program Administrator Roger Wright believes the experience was more fun and educational than other programs because it was more hands-on.

"You learn a lot more this way than you would through a lecture," Wright said.

The Fraternity Fire Academy has held demonstrations throughout the past two weeks with eight campus-run fraternities.

All fraternity houses operated by WVU have sprinklers and monitored fire systems installed that are frequently tested.

The program did not work with sororities this year.

"There are no sororities managed by WVU," Campione said. "However, if they call Environmental Health and Safety, training programs can be arranged."

Program administrators believe Fraternity Fire Academy was very beneficial and plan to continue the program annually.

• Facebook Comments
• Site Comments

Be the first to comment on this article!

Add comment


I am not posting spam. I understand posting spam or other comments that are unrelated to this article will cause my comment to be flagged for deletion and possibly cause my IP address to be permanently banned from this server.

Enter the characters in the image above:

log out